Lady Lufton paused a couple of minutes before she
replied. She had a scheme in her head, but it
seemed to her to savour of cruelty. And yet at
present it was her chief duty to assist her old friend,
if any assistance could be given. There could
hardly be a doubt that such a marriage as this, of
which they were speaking, was in itself an evil.
In her case, the case of her son, there had been no
question of a trial, of money stolen, of aught that
was in truth disgraceful. ’I think if I
were you, Dr Grantly,’ she said, ’that
I would see the young lady while I was here.’

‘See her myself?’ said the archdeacon.
The idea of seeing Grace Crawley himself had, up
to this moment, never entered his head.

‘I think I would do so.’

‘I think I will,’ said the archdeacon,
after a pause. Then he got up from his chair.
‘If I am to do it, I had better do it at once.’

‘Be gentle with her, my friend.’
The archdeacon paused again. He certainly had
entertained the idea of encountering Miss Crawley with
severity rather than gentleness. Lady Lufton rose
from her seat, and coming up to him, took one of his
hands between her own two. ’Be gentle to
her,’ she said. ‘You have owned that
she has done nothing wrong.’ The archdeacon
bowed his head in token of assent and left the room.

Poor Grace Crawley.

CHAPTER LVII

A DOUBLE PLEDGE

The archdeacon, as he walked across from the Court
to the parsonage, was very thoughtful and his steps
were very slow. The idea of seeing Miss Crawley
herself had been suggested to him suddenly, and he
had to determine how he could bear himself towards
her, and what he would say to her. Lady Lufton
had beseeched him to be gentle with her. Was the
mission one in which gentleness would be possible?
Must it not be his object to make this young lady
understand that she could not be right in desiring
to come into his family and share in all his good things
when she had no good things of her own—­nothing
but evil things to bring with her? And how could
this be properly explained to the young lady in gentle
terms? Must he not be round with her, and give
her to understand in plain words—­the plainest
which he could use—­that she would not get
his good things, though she would most certainly impose
the burden of all her evil things on the man whom
she was proposing to herself as a husband. He
remembered very well as he went, that he had been told
that Miss Crawley had herself refused the offer, feeling
herself to be unfit for the honour tendered to her;
but he suspected the sincerity of such a refusal.
Calculating in his own mind the unreasonably great
advantages which would be conferred on such a young
lady as Miss Crawley by a marriage with his son, he
declared to himself that any girl must be very wicked